700 party members resign from ruling AK Party in Diyarbakır

The Justice and Development Party (AK Party) saw 700 of its members resign over two days in protest of the party's decision to not re-nominate Mehmet Geçitli for mayor of Çüngüs, a town in Diyarbakır province.

Speaking to reporters, Geçitli said 400 people resigned from the AK Party on Tuesday and 300 more on Wednesday. “The resignations will reach 1,200 once our friends in the villages resign as well,” Geçitli said.

On Jan. 20, all of the members of the (AK Party) Adana provincial administration board resigned from their posts in a protest initiated by the board's chairman, Ziyaeddin Yağcı, who submitted his resignation following the unveiling of mayoral candidates in the province of Adana.

Yağcı stepped down after the candidates were announced at the AK Party headquarters on the grounds that the provincial administration was not consulted in determining the candidates. His resignation was followed by the resignations of the rest of the board.

Meanwhile, new AK Party Kahramanmaraş provincial branch head Metin Doğan, who was recently assigned to replace Fatih Mehmet Erkoç, who resigned from his post to run for mayor in the upcoming local elections, announced that some of the Kahramanmaraş board's administrative members had submitted their resignations along with Erkoç.